Dear Editor,
Recently I read a letter to the editor in which president of the Jamaica United Local Government Representatives Association (JULGRA), Frank Manborde, commented that he is in full support of Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie carrying out accounting audits of every parish council in the country due to the many allegations of rampant corruption taking place at those municipal authorities being funded by taxpayers’ dollars. I congratulate Manborde and JULGRA for taking the decision to support the call for full accounting and forensic audits of all parish councils to determine the amount of corruption and misappropriation of public funds. And those employees and councillors involved in fraud must be charged and brought before the courts to face the breaches of the law.
For far too long corruption has been reportedly taking place at parish councils and the former People’s National Party Government did nothing to investigate those allegations of corruption and misuse of public funds. As a taxpayer, I am happy that Minister McKenzie has been so fearless in stating that he will not tolerate any corrupt acts taking place in councils, and that the police, including the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Task Force (MOCA) will go to any parish council.
He needs to audit every single parish council quickly. I am quite taken aback that some mayors, including mayors Angela Brown Burke, Norman Scott, Scean Barnswell and Brenda Ramsay, have surprisingly criticised those police raids and have without stated evidence castigated Minister McKenzie saying that those raids were politically motivated. Not true, mayors. MOCA is not a political agency, it is a specially established and well-trained complement of police officers under the overall command of an assistant commissioner of police. I urge those mayors to stop imputing political motives against the police. The police are only doing their jobs.
At least one local government group, JULGRA, has given their full support to the police and Mayor McKenzie for working to clean up the alleged corruption across parish councils and I congratulate JULGRA and its president for their stated support to to Minister McKenzie and the police.
After the councils have been audited the full reports should be tabled in Parliament. So far the Manchester, Spanish Town and Portmore parish councils have been raided by MOCA and two senior parish council employees from Manchester Parish Council have been arrested and charged. Media reports indicate that MOCA visited the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation.
Those personnel in the various councils doing a good job, keep it up. The others need to be removed.
Ramesh Ogilvie
Falmouth, Trelawny
rameshogilvie@outlook.com
Recently I read a letter to the editor in which president of the Jamaica United Local Government Representatives Association (JULGRA), Frank Manborde, commented that he is in full support of Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie carrying out accounting audits of every parish council in the country due to the many allegations of rampant corruption taking place at those municipal authorities being funded by taxpayers’ dollars. I congratulate Manborde and JULGRA for taking the decision to support the call for full accounting and forensic audits of all parish councils to determine the amount of corruption and misappropriation of public funds. And those employees and councillors involved in fraud must be charged and brought before the courts to face the breaches of the law.
For far too long corruption has been reportedly taking place at parish councils and the former People’s National Party Government did nothing to investigate those allegations of corruption and misuse of public funds. As a taxpayer, I am happy that Minister McKenzie has been so fearless in stating that he will not tolerate any corrupt acts taking place in councils, and that the police, including the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Task Force (MOCA) will go to any parish council.
He needs to audit every single parish council quickly. I am quite taken aback that some mayors, including mayors Angela Brown Burke, Norman Scott, Scean Barnswell and Brenda Ramsay, have surprisingly criticised those police raids and have without stated evidence castigated Minister McKenzie saying that those raids were politically motivated. Not true, mayors. MOCA is not a political agency, it is a specially established and well-trained complement of police officers under the overall command of an assistant commissioner of police. I urge those mayors to stop imputing political motives against the police. The police are only doing their jobs.
At least one local government group, JULGRA, has given their full support to the police and Mayor McKenzie for working to clean up the alleged corruption across parish councils and I congratulate JULGRA and its president for their stated support to to Minister McKenzie and the police.
After the councils have been audited the full reports should be tabled in Parliament. So far the Manchester, Spanish Town and Portmore parish councils have been raided by MOCA and two senior parish council employees from Manchester Parish Council have been arrested and charged. Media reports indicate that MOCA visited the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation.
Those personnel in the various councils doing a good job, keep it up. The others need to be removed.
Ramesh Ogilvie
Falmouth, Trelawny
rameshogilvie@outlook.com